From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Serbian Banat was a political entity
established after occupation and partition of Kingdom
of Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers. It existed from 1941 to 1944.
Banat was formally part of Axis protectorate of Serbia, but all power within the region was
in the hands of the local ethnic German minority. Regional civilian commissioner
was Joseph-Sepp Lapp.[1]
Following the defeat of Axis Powers in 1944, this German-ruled
region was revoked and most of its territory was included into Vojvodina, one of the two
autonomous provinces of Serbia within the new SFR Yugoslavia.

Contents

History

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War crimes against
Serbs, Jews and Roma

Although the region was formally a part of Axis protectorate of
Serbia, it was ruled by the German army.
The Germans instituted anti-Jewish measures immediately after the
German invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia. The Jewish population
of the city of Zrenjanin
was rounded up and sent to the Tašmajdan concentration
camp near Belgrade where
they were executed. In September 1941, there was a mass hanging of
Serbian and Jewish civilians. Jews were also forced into labor
battalions to do forced work for the German occupation authorities.
In August 1942, German officials announced that the area was judenrein, or cleansed of Jews.[2]

SS
Division Prinz Eugen

After the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia had been established,
the 7th SS
Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen was fromed
from Yugoslav Germans (Volksdeutsche). The backbone of the division
was made up of ethnic Germans from the Banat itself, many of whom
had been former officers and NCOs in the Yugoslav Army. The core of
the Division was made up of the SS controlled Protection Force or
Selbstschutz consisting of Volksdeutsche from Serbia. In
1943, Himmler would introduce compulsory military
service for the Volksdeutsche of Serbia. Approximately 21,500
ethnic Germans from Serbia would serve in the Waffen SS.

The staff of the "7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz
Eugen" was located in the city of Pančevo in Banat. The division was formed
between April and October, 1942 and was commanded by Romanian
Volksdeutsche SS Gruppenfuehrer and Generalleutnant of the Waffen
SS, Artur Phleps.
By December 31, 1941, the division would be made up of 21,102 men.
The Prinz Eugen SS Division was deployed throughout the former
Yugoslavia to put down the Yugoslav resistance, the Partisans, but was unsuccessful.
During the campaigns it became infamous for reprisals and
atrocities against the Yugoslav civilian population. The division
was accused of committing the worst atrocities against POWs and
civilians during World
War II at the Nuremberg
War Crimes Trials.

Expulsion of ethnic
Germans

Due to the atrocities of the Volksdeutsche 7th SS, but also
because of the support and assistance the Yugoslav Germans granted
the occupation, in 1944 the parliament of DF
Yugoslavia, the Antifascist Council for the Liberation of
Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) decided to expel the Yugoslav German
minority. An estimated number of 60,000 Germans in Banat were
expelled over the course of the next four years.

Population

Ethnic
groups

According to the 1931 census, the population of the region
numbered 585,579 people, including:[3]